NEW CASTLE Woman faces theft and forgery charges

Checks totaling $22,968.74 were cashed from November 1997 to January 1999.
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- A Blunston Avenue woman is accused of cashing pension checks belonging to a woman admitted to an Alzheimer care facility.
Angeline R. Ostapowicz, 74, will appear for a preliminary hearing before District Justice Melissa Amodie at 11 a.m. Friday on charges of theft and forgery filed by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office.
According to paperwork filed to support the charges, Ostapowicz cared for the elderly woman for the last 15 to 20 years and helped the woman obtain the pension benefits in 1997.
Ostapowicz told investigators that the money, totaling $22,968.74, was "owed to her as a gift from the woman," according to court papers.
Sons were unaware: The woman's two adult sons, who handled all of her other finances, were unaware of the pension checks, which were widow's benefits from the pension of the woman's estranged husband who had worked in California.
Authorities said Ostapowicz had the elderly woman sign a document giving Ostapowicz power of attorney over her finances in October 1997. The woman was in St. Francis Hospital under mental evaluation at the time, court records said. She had been found a few days earlier wandering around confused and disoriented in downtown New Castle.
The elderly woman was eventually placed in an Alzheimer's unit at a New Castle nursing home.
Checks cashed: Court documents said Ostapowicz continued to receive and cash the woman's checks after the woman was legally declared incompetent in Lawrence County Common Pleas Court and one of the woman's sons was declared her legal guardian.
The last check was cashed in February 1999, court records said.
The elderly woman's endorsement appeared on all of the checks, but Ostapowicz admitted to authorities she never visited the woman in the Alzheimer's care unit, court records said. Ostapowicz refused to say who signed the checks, according to court papers.